News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-03-24
FROM WASHINGTON.
rom our Regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D. c.,
March 10, 1887.

March 10, 1887.
Notwithstanding the adjournment
of Congress l will continue, for q time
at least, to send you weekly Wash
ington letter. Interest in national af-
fairs is perennial, and it should be so
with the American citizen of both
sexes and of sufficient intelligence to
know what is gong on at the head
quarters of the great nation, of which
the people in such an intimate and re-
sronsibIe way are part. [ can think
of no higher duty of the press than
to educate it's readers and keep them
alive to the fact that they are the con-
stituents not of town, county or
State, merely, but of great nation,
essaying the sublime experiment of
self government, and that in the gov
eminent of the United States is en-
barked richer and more promising
freightage of human hope and endeavor
than has before been known in the
history of our planet. We read with
interest the pages of Roman and
Grecian history; we dwell with rap
ture on the dark romantic volumes of
the middle ages, and upon the vivid
narrative of the progress of civiliza-
ton as portrayed by the modern writ
ers of France and of England.
If the noblest study of mankind is
man, these cannot but be useful, UuG
they are useful especially in that they
afford US the means of comparative
study of our time and country. Never
before or elsewhere has the touch be-
tween the people and the government
been so close as it is in the United
States. More than ten thousand
newspapers, assisted by the telegraph
and the latest printing appliances,
keep the people informed of measures
and events transpiring at the Capital
and the rear and remote parts of the
Union. No citizen who is not recre-
ant to the dearest trust ever vouch-
safed to man can be Indifferent to the
and even to the details, of
his government.
He should study it with the best
light his time and means afford, real
izing that he cannot escape transmit
ting it, impaired or improved, to his
posterity. 1t is not in the power of
Jay Gould to give to his children as
rich a gift as intelligent, benefcent,
enfranchised American citizenship can
bestow on the generations that are to
come. The man who confines his at
teEtion to his own affairs, no matter
how pure and upright his life, can be |
a good man only in a narrow sense.
If he fails to contribute by his voice
and his vote to the publication and
the intelligent administration of pub
lie affairs he hides like a coward while
criminals monopolize the polls and
send their kind to the State Legisla-
lures and to Washington.
1t has been common of late to
speak of the wickedness of Washing
ington. The city is no better and no
worse than the people make it. You
must remember that the citizens of !
your Capital are helpless and are only
in a limited sense responsible for their
government. There are 100000 peo-
pie in the District of Columbia, but
they cannot vote. The President ap-
points three Commissioners who are |
entrusted with the government under |
laws enacted by Congress. Send us
better Congressman and we will have
better laws. Send US better Presi-
dent and we will have better COM
missioners, who will in turn make a
better effort to suppress the bells of
vice and degradation. Mr.. Cleve-
lands intentions are good, but his ex-
perience is sadly limited. Many of
his appointments, while not positively
bad, are weak, ignorant, and incom
petent. This is notably the case in
the Commissioner of Patents, who,
however, is about to redeem himself
by resigning. C.. S.